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Friday, August 22, 2014

#CTC29 day22 Following in their Words

Take the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty and rewrite it, borrowing the voice and style of a famous writer. In case you're unfamiliar with the rhyme, here it is:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

I thought about using Marcel Proust for the second iteration, but I don't think I can mimic Sir Terry nor Marcel Proust's style well enough to differentiate them - yet. It might do me good to practice this sort of thing more often, and in more depth.

In the style of Terry Pratchett (at least in that general direction):

First you see the Wall. It's on some kind of ground, built by some kind of people, but this isn't the story of the ground nor of the people. This isn't even the story of the Wall. The Wall existed long before this story, and will continue long after this story ends. No one has asked the Wall about its feelings on the topic.

Cast your vision along the Wall. There, right at the top, sits Humpty Dumpty - at first. In a blink he's falling, and falling, then landing hard. The echo of his crash has hardly faded before the pound of hoof beats takes its place. You see the royal cavalry hurry in, dismount, and try to tend to Humpty's wounds. Each member of the cavalry, riders and mounts, tried to help. He remained a broken creature until the end of his days.

In the style of Richard Stark (more or less):

With a craftsman's focus, Parker put the cross hairs between Humpty Dumpty's shoulder blades. A gentle squeeze on the trigger, the rifle coughed, and Humpty's body fell cleanly off the wall. The crash from that height would hit the bullet wound, at least for a while. Even if the cavalry arrived, Parker would be long gone. He broke down the rifle, putting the parts in two trash bags. He moved the cash left for him into his overnight bag, then walked out of the building. He tossed each trash bag into a different dumpster, got into his car, and drove out of the city.

Newspaper headlines screamed HUMPTY DUMPTY HOMOCIDE the next morning. Parker glanced at the article while he ate. They found the bullet hole in Humpty's back, but couldn't be sure if the shot or the fall had killed him. Parker didn't care. He was already thinking of his resort hotel, and the woman who shared his bed.